Sunday, May 08, 2005

Michaud on CAFTA

Go read his excellent piece on the effects this legislation could have on Maine and the nation.

Free trade is fine, but the people of Maine deserve fair trade. We deserve trade that does not cost us our jobs and our way of life.

That is why I have been opposing CAFTA; and I am not alone. Congress typically has voted within 55 days after President Bush has signed a trade agreement. But May 28th will mark the one-year anniversary of the President signing CAFTA. Why the long hold-up? Because Members of Congress from both parties are asking a lot of tough questions about this deal, and wondering if it will do anything good for America.

It doesn't take a trade expert to see the massive economic mismatch between the United States and the nations that make up the Central American Free Trade Agreement: Honduras, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and El Salvador. The U.S. economy, with a $10 trillion Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2002, is 170 times larger than the economies of the CAFTA nations, at about $62 billion combined. To put this into perspective, the purchasing power of these nations is almost identical to the purchasing power of New Haven, Connecticut.

Pat Buchanan's reasons for disliking free trade can not be compared to mine. I have no problem with people from Mexico enjoying the social benefits in the United States from you poor overburdened with Taxes people.

"1.5 million illegal aliens are caught each year crossing our border and 500,000 make it in to take up residence and enjoy all the social programs a generous but over-taxed America can provide."

Where I live we pay much higher taxes in order to provide a social safety, a much better social safety net I might add than the United States has.

But that's beside the point. Free trade encourages people to buy products that are made overseas and to completly neglet the porducts that are made locally, harming both their own economy and the environment. With an increased demand for exports sweat shops increase, and the poor of the country pay the price.

Even if we didn't have that to contend with there are also all the hidden clauses and chapters in NAFTA, CAFTA, and the FTAA that take power out of the hands of people and hand them over to corporations.

I don't like CAFTA you see, but for very diffent reasons that Buchanan